A Whole Spectrum of Feelings

A few years ago, something happened. I remember saying, “Hold up. Wait. Stop the presses. What’s going on?”

They told me that when you stop stuffing everything down, you have these things called feelings and emotions, and I remember thinking, “Did I miss a business meeting? Because I definitely did not vote for this!”

One day, my eyes started leaking. I made a call. Apparently, this is called crying, and when it happens, you have to just glide with it for a while, and it will pass. In my childhood, I was not allowed to cry. I’d get hit if I did cry, so I never cried.

Another feeling appeared: fear. I made another call, and my OA friend said I could either Face Everything And Recover or Fear Everything And Run. Here’s another: False Evidence Appearing Real. And another: feelings are not facts.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway, and one of the most important things I have learned since my feelings and emotions have reappeared, is that, given time, they will pass.

Feelings come and feelings go. Before recovery, I’d go right back to the food or something else to alter my consciousness. But feelings will go in time, whether you eat about them or not. In fact, the eating only buries them alive. Then, they can pop up later to complicate situations that may be far removed from the original issue.

Yes, I cry now. I sit with things. I walk. I write. I read program literature. I call. I share. I’m learning new coping skills to replace the maladaptive coping skills that I clung to as a child.

Ah, but I do not only cry; I laugh a lot more than I used to. Now I have a whole spectrum of feelings. Some of the time, I wouldn’t vote against them anymore.

— Judy